Flammarion, CAMILLE

Flammarion, CAMILLE, French astronomer, was born in 1842 at Montigny-le-Roi, entered the Paris Observatory in 1858, and shortly afterwards made a reputation by his popular lectures on astronomy. The titles of his principal books will sufficiently indicate the line of his activity: The Plurality of Inhabited Worlds (1862; 30th ed. 1884); Imaginary Worlds and Real Worlds (1864; 19th ed. 1884); God in Nature (1866; 18th ed. 1882); Celestial Marvels (1865; Eng. trans. 1870); Studies and Lectures on Astronomy (1866-81; 9 vols.); History of the Heavens (1872); The Atmosphere (1872; Eng. trans. 1873); The Stars and the Curiosities of the Heavens (1881); Travels in the Air (trans. by Glaisher, 1871); The Planet Mars (1892); Popular Astronomy (trans. 1894). In 1893 he began to edit an encyclopaedic dictionary in 8 vols. See a Life by S. Hugo (1891).